Doug Greene, author of the forthcoming "Specters of Communism: Blanqui and Marx", takes up the accusation that Leninism is "Blanquist".

By Douglas Enaa Greene[1]

June 1, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Rosa Luxemburg once said that Bolshevism is nothing more than the “mechanical transposition of the organizational principles of Blanquism into the mass movement of the socialist working class.”[2] Many leftists, both now and a century ago, share Luxemburg's position that Leninism is elitist and/or Blanquism. Yet all of these judgments are far off the mark. For Lenin, Blanquism was something that the communist movement needed to overcome if they wanted to win a successful socialist revolution. Leninism is not simply Blanquism or Jacobinism adapted to Russian conditions, but the development of a Marxist mode of politics that draws clear revolutionary lessons from the defeat of the Paris Commune. The central operator of the Leninist mode of politics is a revolutionary vanguard party devoted to the emancipation of the oppressed workers and peasants. However, there remains a grain of truth in the accusation that Leninism is Blanquist, since “Blanquism” is a label used by social democrats and revisionists to condemn the revolutionary essence of Marxism

May 25, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from JohnRiddell.wordpress.com -- The question of broad parties has been heatedly debated by socialists in recent years. Many have argued that “Leninism” should be discarded in favor of wider formations such as Syriza, Podemos, the British Labour Party, the Greens, etc. Others have rejected participating in such structures, on the “Leninist” grounds that building independent revolutionary Marxist parties remains the strategic organizational task for socialists.

Intertwined with this debate has been a serious reassessment of “Leninism” itself. Particularly following the publication of Lars Lih’s monumental Lenin Rediscovered, big questions are being asked: Did Lenin break in theory and/or practice with the “orthodox” strategy articulated by Marxist theoretician Karl Kautsky? Were the Bolsheviks, in other words, a “party of a new type”?

August 5, 2015 -- Links International
Journal of Socialist Renewal -- We live in an era where too much of the
left, both in the USA and abroad, remains stuck to old orthodoxies and failed
strategies. Marxism is reduced to holy writ and rote, devoid of any ability to
either interpret or change the world.

In order to win, the left desperately needs to break away from past
habits and recover the ability to raise questions anew by using Marxist
methodology to formulate strategy. In this endeavour, there are a number of
thinkers we can profitably learn from; one of whom is Nicos Poulantzas. Despite
the limitations and contradictions within Poulantzas' methods, he was not
afraid to ask the right questions and to develop new strategies.

To that end, it is worth looking at Poulantzas' work in three areas: the
state, class and the transition to socialism.

March 10, 2015 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- This edition of
Tamás Krausz’s study of Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is
compelling and imposing in more than one way. It is not, strictly speaking, an
intellectual biography. So much is offered in this remarkable volume, however,
that many readers will not complain that they are not actually treated to a
chronological narrative tracing the evolution of Lenin’s thought.

December 4, 2014 -- Weekly Worker, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal-- According to some comrades in the Socialist Workers Party (UK), Lenin was a hypocrite who did not say what he thought. In this article, based on a speech to a London Communist Forum, Lars T. Lih puts the record
straight.

* * *

First of all let me say that it is very complimentary to have
two critiques -- one substantial, one not -- of my views on Lenin
recently published. The first is by Kevin Corr and Gareth Jenkins of the
Socialist Workers Party1 and the second is written by Peter Taaffe of the Socialist Party in England and Wales.2

Ian Birchall has made an important contribution to the ongoing
discussion on the international left about the meaning and value of
Leninism, which is one of the focal points of my recent collection Unfinished Leninism: The Rise and Return of a Revolutionary Doctrine. Here I would like to make a few comments about what this esteemed comrade has to say.

Building effective
campaigns and coalitions is extremely important. Socialist Alliance members at the Sydney national day of action on climate change, November 17. Photo by Peter Boyle.

By Dave Holmes

[The following talk was presented at the Socialist Ideas Conference held in Melbourne, November 2, 2013, organised by the Socialist Alliance.]

November 18, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Arguing for Socialism -- In Australia, as in all
the imperialist countries, the capitalist class is carrying out a
massive assault on all the gains won by working people in more than 150
years. Every TV news bulletin these days features reports of cutbacks,
selloffs and outsourcing, attacks on workers' rights and attacks on civil
liberties — as well as wars and massive misery abroad.

With social democracy
firmly in the neoliberal camp and the left marginalised, the capitalist
class sees its chance and is pressing home the attack as vigorously as
possible.

Peter Camejo Archive, Marxists Internet Archive -- The development of a vanguard for the Third American Revolution must
be rooted in our culture, language, and democratic and revolutionary
traditions. This question in our opinion is not simply a tactical
matter, nor is it a question of finding popular expressions of Marxist
concepts. It is rooted in a correct conception of the Third American
Revolution.

Defensive nature of revolution

Revolutions are defensive. Fundamental social change takes place as a
defense against attempts to take back established rights, gains, or
conditions. Revolutions do not occur out of ideological commitment to a
better or higher social order. Ideas, on a mass scale, can transcend the
ideological constraints of the existing social order only in part and
for short periods of time, during intense, mass, independent (from the
ruling class) activity. To believe otherwise is to reject a materialist
conception of the relationship between ideas and their socioeconomic and
political environment.

July 31, 2013 -- SwpTvUK -- The following panel discussion -- involving Paul Le Blanc, a speaker from the SWP and Gilbert Achcar -- took place at Marxism 2013, organised by the British Socialist Workers Party. Questions addressed included Lenism today, "left reformism", the left unity process underway in Britain today and the crisis in the SWP. It is followed by a vigorous discussion from the floor.

July 20, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
-- The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is an important “far left” organisation
in Britain which, among other things, organises an annual educational
conference -- Marxism -- in London. The SWP is undergoing a crisis which is only
one aspect of a much larger phenomenon, taking place on a global scale within
the revolutionary left. This involves a recomposition of the revolutionary
socialist movement as a political force, in tandem with the struggles of the
multi-faceted working class struggling against the effects of the present world
crisis of capitalism.

In what follows, I want to offer a report on what I was
able to observe while attending Marxism 2013 (July 11-15, 2013). I will also take up
various issues having to do with discussions and debates having to do with the
Leninist tradition and how it relates to realities and struggles of our time.